Nashville STR / Codes Help PLEASE!

[Louise L.]

My husband and I are new(ish) to real estate and we made part of our house in Nashville into a attached airbnb studio apartment with bedroom, bath, living and kitchenette.

We hired a contractor to do the work and he said we needed to sign a mother-in-law covenant to get the permit. 100% our mistake for not fully understanding what this means. Fast forward to March 2020 and I apply for STR rental permit to find that the mother-in-law restrictive covenant means we can't get a STR permit! Contractor has blamed codes and told us to email codes but we are getting no where and contractor keeps fobbing us off with reasons why people aren't getting back to us.

How can we get this undone? The STR guy told us it is possible to get it rescinded but we just feel like we are getting no where. Does anyone specialize in codes and know how to do this? We've only been living in the US for 1 year it's all new to us!

Side note: We are currently outside the US due to us not being able to get back for past 4 months due to Coronavirus as travel ban (we are on visas) means we can't enter country so trying to do this remotely so we can be good to go once we return.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated!!

[Luke Carl]

@Louise Lechat

I would say this has nothing to do with your contractor. STR permits are not his job.

What is going on with the rest of the house? Is it also rented? In my experience if you play around with the STR rules in Nashville you will get burned. Especially if the property is zoned residential -which it sounds like it is.

You’re hoping for @Luka Milicevic and @Avery Carl to chime in. They are the experts in this field.